it was really heartening to learn that the purpose of creating such a thick uterine lining during the menstrual period was to prevent the implantation of embryos rather than encourage them, and that our uterus is basically flushing out anything it deems unworthy during the period itself rather than “punishing” us for not being pregnant (which is how it’s usually framed). it’s almost as if your female body is more concerned with the protection and continuation of itself rather than being used as a procreative vessel.
the fact that we’ve come to accept the idea that our reproductive organs are punishing us for not being continuously pregnant is proof of how deeply patriarchal brainwashing has convinced women that we are nothing but broodmares for ‘their’ children.
Okay this is a very half-formed thought and I’m not sure where I’m going with it yet, but the fact that the teen girls we’re meant to root for in so many Teen Girl Stories are the ones who are bad at or uncomfortable with performing femininity probably isn’t a coincidence.
And it’s mostly not because the people who create media about teen girls want to shatter gender roles; it’s more likely because even though femininity is the prescribed way for female-identified people to behave it’s also seen as something largely unpleasant.
Um. I’m going somewhere with this, maybe after I finish my homework. But I want to hang onto this thought.
ex: the proof of Regina George’s redemption is giving up her hyper-femininity in favor of aggressive, masculine-coded sports
ex 2: in High School Musical Gabriella and Taylor have a bonding moment over their nail beds being “history”, contrasting themselves with the more conventionally feminine cheerleaders. Gabriella is hardly butch but her femininity is portrayed in a more soft, natural way to contrast with Sharpay’s louder, more eye-catching and implicitly unpleasant outfits. Sharpay is not the bad guy because she’s girly, but she’s maybe more girly because she’s the bad guy.
Because caring about your appearance is BAD, that’s a character trait that we associate with Bad Characters, and most especially Bad Women Characters. Sharpay and Regina care so much about their looks because they’re shallow, and that means they’ve unpleasant.
All teenage girls are told, one way or another, that they should care about their looks and put effort into being attractive. But in the stories about teen girls, the only ones visibly caring about their looks are the bitches.
If a Nice Girl ™ wants to make an effort to look good she better have an excuse, like prom or a date or finding out she’s a princess.
Princess Diaries makes such a good point about this, actually. Mia is supposed to be attractive, because she’s the protagonist, but she also can’t do it herself, because that will make her look like just another Vapid Teen Girl. So she gets a makeover handed to her. Pretty is something that Just Happens to nice girls, because if you work at it you’re a bitch.
(Not to mention pretty isn’t compatible with frizzy hair or glasses.)
God, fucking Harry Potter isn’t exempt from this. Hermione gets contrasted with Lavender and it’s so obvious that Lavender is Wrong, because she’s goofy and sentimental and clingy and girly girly girly, in sharp contrast with Hermione “I only do my hair for the Yule Ball, I’ve got shit to do” Granger over here. And that’s not shitting on Hermione! It’s just clear that there’s a very particular sort of teenage girl we’re supposed to like in HP and she doesn’t care about Girl Things.
Even Sky High, the greatest teen movie of all time, falls into this. The women on the good guys’ side are Layla – soft femme, a little tomboyish, has strong opinions – and Magenta – vaguely punkish, v snarky – neither of whom do feminity “right”.
On the bad side there’s Penny, who’s a LITERAL evil cheerleader hivemind, and Gwen, who’s both the most popular girl in school and the actual super villain behind everything. These things are not coincidences.
Tbh as a parent I didn’t realise the baggage about this I carried until my kid got into MLP and I watched it with them and encountered the character of Rarity
She’s a character who is extremely feminine but her positive character trait is generosity she wants everyone she encounters to look as good as they can because she knows looking your best can make you feel good and she wants to share it
And for the first time I saw fashion and make up and all that stuff as self expression and artistry and something that, like almost all things, can be good or bad depending on the person
and I was and am really fucking ashamed that it took a fucking children’s cartoon about magical ponies to help me recognise that
This trope needs to die.
Give me more characters who are stereotypically girly and kind and generous and soft and strong and REAL
“[Katniss]
is supposed to be attractive, because she’s the protagonist, but she
also can’t do it herself, because that will make her look like just
another Vapid Teen Girl. So she gets a makeover handed to her. Pretty is
something that Just Happens to nice girls ”
wonder how many other teenage girl protagonist we can swap that name for
Ladies what’s that Margaret Atwood quote u know the one
“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it’s all a male fantasy: that you’re strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
“Men’s indifference to learning about contraception and to taking any responsibility for it is a theme that emerges from many reports of projects that have attempted, and failed, to reach and educate men. One of the most successful programs of contraception education for men, a Planned Parenthood project in Chicago, abandoned its attempts to reach men over the age of twenty-five when it was found that these men simply would not participate… Instead, the project targeted a younger group, and as part of its research the project conducted a survey of over a thousand men aged fifteen to nineteen:These young men were asked whether they agreed with the statement “It’s okay to tell a girl you love her so that you can have sex with her.” Seven out of ten agreed that it’s okay.They were asked whether they agreed with the statement “A guy should use birth control whenever possible.” Eight out of ten disagreed and said a guy should not.And when asked, “If I got a girl pregnant, I would want her to have an abortion,” nearly nine out of ten said no, they would not want her to have an abortion.These teenage men agreed: Deception to obtain coital access is okay; male irresponsibility in contraception is okay; but abortion is not okay—“because it’s wrong.””
— John Stoltenberg, “The Fetus as Penis: Men’s Self-Interest and Abortion Rights” from Refusing to be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice (via reading-blog)
Lately I’ve been doing this thing where when men give me shit at my job, I choose to instead speak to their wives/girlfriends/female counterpart. I had a dude today try to yell at me and I ignored him and instead spoke in a very level voice to his wife instead. He literally stomped his feet like a fucking toddler and said “stop ignoring me! I’m talking!” And his wife said “George, please use a quieter voice. You’re embarrassing me.”
You are a genius and I’m using this
Lol I learned it from my mom. She does this all the time and eventually the guy either sulks off somewhere or adjusts his behaviour and THEN she’ll address him. I did this with my friends puppies when I was training them and it works the same tbh
“Even angry she was beautiful”. Even tired. Even sick. Even one crazy night later. Even with two broken ribs. Even, even, even.
An eye hangs in front of me. Always watching. How silly for me to care about being pretty. But I care about being pretty.
Do men feel like this? Even alone sometimes I catch myself fixing, tidying. I cross windows no one can see in and I worry that someone will see in. I lock the bathroom door and have strange, unlikely thoughts about people who will sneak in and rip the curtain off the rod and see me naked. Sometimes, in the worst moments, I wonder: what if there’s a camera and people are seeing this ugliness.
My mother taught me to plan underwear in such a way that if they found your body you wouldn’t be embarrassed. It seems insane until you watch six seconds of television; where our dead bodies are almost always mostly naked, even beautiful in death. I worry I will die in an unflattering position.
“Who cares what they think?” I ask myself. I don’t even want the attention of men. Dressing for the attention of men on a daily basis is a dangerous thing and isn’t sustainable on the metro system. I want the attention of other women.
But I still look in the mirror and adjust things. I do this and don’t think about men. I wear makeup and it’s not for men. I sit pretty in traffic and it’s not for men. This eye, I guess. The “them”. It never blinks. Maybe I am the one who is watching.
The woman in the comic book has been kidnapped and tortured. We zoom in on her lips. Beautiful. Even then.
the thing about being someone who’s never catcalled is that you start to wonder why like is it because im ugly???
and then you realize that youre judging your worth by whether or not you are objectifiable to a man and thats so fucked up like honestly its so fucked up
but the worst part about the patriarchy is that it still sits at the back of your mind regardless like “nobody thinks youre pretty because they dont see you as a sex object” like somehow thats a desirable thing and it fucks me up
You’re either public property or completely invisible.
My favorite is people who send me unsolicited dick pics and then they’re like, “uh, hi? Are you ignoring me?”
It’s just so funny to me. Like one minute I’m designing bioreactors and getting published for heat dissipation in polymers and then I open this godforsaken app to dudes hanging brain who can’t even pronounce “saponification” calling me a slut because I won’t give attention to their limp excuses for existence.
3 billion years of evolution and the greatest form of communication you can conjure up in your fermented omelet of a conscience is submitting your wrinkly ball sac to a stranger on the Internet to substitute the attention your parents never gave their mistake of an offspring.
shealwaysreads 